I am unable with my limited skills to add pictures to the blog.  So we are so lucky to have Zach Buttram posting our pictures.  I email him the pictures and he posts them.  Thank you Zach, for your help.

We started the day in sunny Honfleur and packed up and headed to Mt. Saint Michel.  We arrived and it was windy, rainy and cold.  We parked the car and walked to the Information Office only to discover  that we had a long, long walk to get to a shuttle bus.  The lady at the Information Office said it was an eight minute walk.  Okay.  You try walking in the cold wind and rain for eight minutes; not an easy feat.  We rode the bus as far as it would take us and then we had to walk even further in the cold, wind and rain.  At this point I realized what a hard job it is to be a tourist.  Here we are at the most famous beautiful place in France and we had to walk approximately 20 minutes in the wind and rain to get to the entrance.  We had lunch in a little restaurant and the rain had stopped so we continued.  This was a big walk up many, many stairs.  We quickly realized there was no way Barbara could walk up the stairs and Susan stayed back with Barbara and Lola continued up the countless stairs.  I decided to wait for Barbara and Susan and then a huge group of tourists passed and after they passed I couldn’t see Barbara or Susan or Lola.  OMG.  I am alone.  So, I just continued up the endless stairs (over 100 steps of endless sizes).  I paused several times.  I reached a plateau and there Lola was.  She said we had another 100 steps to go: no hand rails and people everywhere.  “A woman knows her limitations.”  So, we turned around and headed back down.  Now we had to take the long, long walk back to our car.  We went to the Information Office and we could not find our parking ticket.  We can’t leave until we find it.  So, we went back to the car to look for the ticket.  After a frantic search we found the ticket in my purse.  Lola walked back to pay the 3 Euro fee only to find out it was 3 Euros an hour so we owed 8.5 Euros.  Thank goodness she had taken extra money with her.  The lady at the Information Office said we had to find the ticket to get out and we asked what would happen if we couldn’t find it and she asked if we could cook as we couldn’t leave.  I really think she was joking but Lola told her we don’t cook anymore.  We are now in our warm room drinking wine and talking about dinner.

We got up so early this morning to go to the Normandy Memorial Museum in Caen.  The girl at the tourist information in Honfleur said to be there by 9:00.  We were but the tour had already left.  You had to make reservations the day before and no one mentioned that.  We had breakfast and then toured the museum.  Then we got in the car and drove to the American Cemetery.  We entered and from the cemetery you can see Omaha Beach.  We were looking at the view and taking pictures and I notice Lola hugging someone.  I walked over and there was Laura Hershey, a gal we play golf with at SeaPines.  How incredible is that?  We all hugged Laura.  As we were walking around the cemetery we heard “The Star Spangled Banner” being played.  I was walking with Barbara and we froze and put our hands over our hearts.  I must say it is very emotional to be standing where thousands of young American boys are buried and hear the national anthem.  Then they played taps.  I took many pictures and I wanted to get a picture of a Star of David grave marker and went to the closest one.  Would you believe the last name was Taylor?

Wednesday we drove along the coast line from Honfleur to Merville-Franceville plage.  Our day was filled with half timbered houses and breath taking views.  We stopped to see a beautiful church in Villers-Sur-Mer.  We had lunch at Hastings in the village of Cabourg.  Our waiter spoke English and translated the menu for us.  He was kind and also very handsome.  He said he had been to New York and bought French wine there for the same prices as it costs in France.  I have to say that Susan is a fabulous driver but on ocassion she did get lost but we eventually reached all our destinations.  She doesn’t trust our Garmin.  We drove home and had dinner that evening at Cote Resto in Honfleur.  Barbara ordered lobster and here is the picture for Kendall.

We woke up Tuesday morning to rain so we decided to stay inside until the rain stops.  We have been trying to figure out how to operate the TV every day with no success so it may be a long day.  But there is good news: Lola got on to her email account and was able to answer a new security question.  Time to celebrate.  We decided to call Amanda and Craig and ask if they could come over and show us how to operate the TV.  They did and it was nice to have a TV and finally hear the news.  Lola also bought a phone card and now the callenge was to figure out how to use it.  She figured it out and we had another success.  It stopped raining so we went out for lunch.  After lunch Susan and I decided to go to a museum about the artist Eugene Boudin.  We got there and they were closed only on Tuesdays.  We headed back down the hill and went to two museums about the history of Honfleur.  Because we were seniors we got to visit both museums for 3.50 Euros.  We got back to the apartment and we all went to the grocery store and bought ham, cheese, pickles, mustard, bread and cookies.  We ate in for dinner because two big meals a day is to much even though we adore the food.

Today we took a drive called the Cider Route, which “meanders throughout a typically Augeron landscape.  Within this superb and undulating setting, castles, manor houses, half-timbered houses and apple orchards offer the region some of its finest views.”  The fields were lush and looked like green velvet.  We stopped and had lunch in a small village called Bonnebosq.

The restaurant was called Auberge du Bras d’or and our wonderful waitress was Mme HAMEL Rejane.  She helped us to understand the menu and even brought a man in who spoke a little English and he translated the menu for us.  During the course of the meal Susan accidentally added water to Lola’s white wine and began drinking it.  No problem.  When Lola realized it she took Susan’s wine.  That was good since Susan is the driver.

We visited the town of Beuvron en Auge and it is a village with a central market hall and manor houses and is recognized as one of the bost beautiful villages in Frances.

Our first day with the car was interesting.  We had trouble getting out of the huge airport and we pulled over to look at the map.  We were up on a little incline.  When Susan tried to put the car in reverse she couldn’t.  A moment of panic sat in.  She drove off the little incline with no damage.  On the highway she couldn’t figure out how to put the car in cruise control.  I got out the information booklet and guess what: it was all in French.  After several attempts Susan did figure out how to put the car in reverse.

We arrived in Honfleur and were met by Amanda and Craig, the apartment managers.  They were very gracious and Craig even help carry our suitcases to the apartment.  They answered all our questions and made reservations at a great restaurant for us.  We went to the store before dinner and bought some snacks, coffee cream and of course wine.